9/5/18 – Tubby Smith, Head Men’s Basketball Coach, High Point University

Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Orlando “Tubby” Smith, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at High Point University. On March 27 of this year, Smith was named as the 12th head men’s basketball coach in HPU history. He joins the Panthers after serving as the head coach at Memphis for two seasons. An all-conference standout for High Point College from 1969-73, Smith coached Kentucky to the 1998 national championship and is one of two head coaches to guide five different programs to the NCAA Division I Tournament (Tulsa, Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota and Texas Tech).

Smith has been named National Coach of the Year three times (2003, 2005, 2016), conference coach of the year six times (1994, 1995, 1998, 2003, 2005, 2016) and was honored with the John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award in 2016. In 2000, Smith was an assistant coach on Rudy Tomjanovich’s staff that led the United States to Olympic gold.

Smith has made 20 postseason appearances as a head coach, including nine Sweet Sixteen and four Elite Eight trips. Smith has mentored 18 student-athletes who have gone on to play in the NBA, including 13 NBA draft picks. In 27 seasons at six schools, Smith has amassed a combined record of 597-302 (.664).

The former Panther standout was inducted into the High Point University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016. In 2013, Smith was inducted into the University of Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame.

Smith comes to High Point University in a time of great transformation. Since 2005, enrollment has more than tripled and grown from three to eight academic schools. The US. News & World Report ranked HPU the Best College and the Most Innovative College in the South and the Princeton Review included HPU among its Best 382 Colleges in the Nation.